What’s Your Favorite Trope in Video Games/Media?

I was talking with a friend about the subject recently and thought, “Hey, that’d make for a banger digi post,” so here ya go.

Mine has got to be the Title Theme Drop (Title Theme Drop - TV Tropes). More specifically, when the main/title theme or a remix of it plays either right before or during the climax. It hits especially hard when you’re not necessarily expecting it, but then you get plunged right into the action.

To cite a few examples:

  • Cave Story
  • Metroid Prime
  • Sonic Adventure I & II
  • Live A Live
  • A few mainline Touhous (EoSD, IN, UFO, etc.)
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl & Ultimate
  • A bunch of VNs and basically the whole SciADV series (peak fiction)

This is mostly a video game trope, though I’m sure it’s sometimes used in TV/movies/anime too. Can you think of any other examples of this? What’s your favorite trope?

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i’m not sure for media in general but for video games i’m quite partial to superbosses (Superboss - TV Tropes)

usually this is referring to rpgs (with some examples in other genres) but my definition of superboss is a bit broader
example: special zone in super mario world is a superboss

favorite examples include:

persona 3, 4, 5

the battles against the velvet room attendants and reaper have been a series tradition since 3, as well as some unique examples for each game
5 is particularly cool with its battles against illusionary copies of the protagonists from 3 and 4

cave story (ackari don't read this)

ballos/sanctuary is more of a true final boss (True Final Boss - TV Tropes) than a superboss but i’ll count him anyway
either way it’s definitely the coolest part of the entire game

final fantasy VI advance

the GBA version added a new dungeon with like 9 new superbosses as well as 3 new esper bosses, as well as a big 128-battle endurance gauntlet which includes some of those

breath of the wild

maz koshia’s a pretty fun challenge to offset how pathetically easy calamity ganon inevitably becomes if you actually play the game
honorable mention to golden lynels as well

touhou

extra stage bosses are cool they’re a lot of fun
i’m kinda bad at them though i’ve only beaten flandre
(i still can’t even reach ran in touhou 7 (and yukari is just out of the question))

pac man championship edition 2

to be honest i just think it’s really funny to say “pac man championship edition 2 has a superboss”
you unlock a harder version of the final boss by completing every stage in adventure mode on the highest difficulty

paper mario

this is an obligatory mention
the master, anti guy, and kent c koopa from 64, bonetail from TTYD, and shadoo (hahahaha) from super paper mario

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Ohhh. Shout-out to “the perfect run” for my love of tropes done well.

It does them all so well.
I’m partial to the secretly overpowered ability.